This invention addresses problems associated with treating and cleaning surfaces as encountered in many areas of human activity like domestic and institutional cleaning, cleaning automobiles, personal care, first aid and manufacturing. The problem is the inconvenience caused by the number of actions and items required to treat and clean a surface, the effort involved and risks associated with repeated exposure of hands to chemicals.
What is needed is a Tool shaped to perform many common tasks that are encountered when treating widely different surfaces, that is easy to make and safe to use and can be sized up or down to suit the area to be treated.
Thus the problem to be solved is the design of a Tool, a multi-function Tool for treating and cleaning surfaces by rubbing, the Tool able to follow complex shapes and reach into recesses as it treats the surface by applying and spreading stuff, then agitating the stuff to maximise its effect, then removing residues and finally wiping the surface dry and clean while keeping hands safely removed clean and dry.
A solution is to create a hand holdable Tool shaped to be used with a dispenser and preferably joined to the dispenser, the size of this combination then scaled up or down to suit the area to be treated. The Tool will require a multiplicity of flexible rubbing faces distant from a holdable area thereby keeping the users hands removed from dispensed stuff during use.
Such a Tool can be fashioned with a tapering main feature that acts like a stiff cantilevered beam or spine that carries and supports a multiplicity of protrusions each with flexible finlike features that are used as rubbing faces. The stiff spine traverses the Tool and has means of coupling at proximal end onto dispensing device of roughly similar proportions (size), allowing a stuff dispenser reservoir to be shaped and used as a handle to hold the Tool.
Tool bodies with appended rubbing faces are easily made with sheet cardboard, plastics or metals, faces covered with rubbing materials; rough for spreading and rubbing stuff in, smooth and compliant for scraping up, soft and absorbent for wiping off or swabbing up residues from treated surface.
A hand holdable Tool as outlined above might be termed a mid-size Tool for treating mid size surfaces such as commonly encountered in domestic cleaning. Larger Tools are used for institutional cleaning, manufacturing and automotive after-markets. It may become impractical to hand hold a larger stuff container, therefore a stand alone stuff container is used joined by flexible hoses to the Tool mounted on a hand held dispenser head. If on the other hand the Tool is made smaller, for use with personal care or first-aid products, the dispenser and its container are small and may be incorporated into the Tool, in which case the Tool is held gripped between fingers and stuff is progressively squeezed out from an integral enclosure during rubbing. The basic shape and means of manufacture and method of use however can be common to all three sizes of Tool.
More specifically this is a Tool for treating surfaces by rubbing with rough rubbing faces on finlike protrusions appended to a stiff spine. The spine tapered in at least one plane towards Tool distal end and broadens and stiffens towards proximal end for holding. The spine carries a separate stiff dorsal fin for wiping and scraping and further flexible faces for wiping dry.
There are many examples of single and double faced rubbing Tools known in the art. For example knives, trowels, spatulas and many other bladed Tools with rubbing faces bounded by cutting or scraping edges. The subject invention improves over these as a treatment tool by using separate rubbing and wiping (scraping) surfaces so that it's rubbing face is made rough and has varying flexibility while the wiping face is stiffer and smoother. The invention further improves by adding more rubbing capability by adding extra discrete working faces enabling it to both put down and take up material.
The invention therefore improves over prior art by providing a utility design for a multifunctional Tool that can be sized to suit most surfaces. The Tool carries a multiplicity of rubbing surfaces that are separate and are used separately and the Tool is used with a separate dispensing device.
More specifically the Tool is used with a stuff dispenser for applying dispensed stuff to a treatable surface, spreading it over, rubbing it against then wiping off residues from that surface, the Tool comprising:
a stiff spine-portion tapering towards distal end and shaped for hand-holding or coupling to a hand-holdable dispenser towards proximal end, the spine-portion has lateral finlike protrusions attached towards distal end, both spine and protrusions carry working faces, the Tool's rubbing capability is provided by the first face, which is the underface of the finlike protrusions, these have a stiff central region and flexible peripheral regions and are rough for spreading dispensed stuff and treating a surface, the Tool's wiping capability is provided by the Tools second face located on the spine and is separate from the first face, the second face being stiffer and smoother than the first face and is used to remove treatment residues.